Picking up right where the first film left off, Cabin Fever begins with the familiar watering hole poisoned with the flesh eating bacteria. This watering whole conveniently pipes water into the town and is pulled from by the local water supply factory. Long story short the whole town becomes infected by the horrible flesh eating virus/bacteria/whatever and sets up the film for multiple blood soaked and gory moments. The majority of the film takes place at a high school where the kids are at their prom and spreading the virus like wildfire. Blow jobs, kisses, blood loss and more are all ways the nasty shit is spread throughout the school.
However, unlike the first film the cast of characters in Cabin Fever 2 are dry, lifeless and completely one dimensional. With the exception of local cop Winston (played again by the hilarious Giuseppe Andrews) the cast of characters in this film are terrible. None of them exude any sort of personality or likeable qualities whatsoever. I didn’t care as any of them were dying horrible deaths as there was no connection made due to the poor writing and casting. The whole time I was watching the film I was wondering why Giuseppe Andrews didn’t have a larger role with more screen time as he was the definite highlight.
As I mentioned above, town cop Winston was the best thing about Cabin Fever 2 and should have got a lot more screen time. I laughed my ass off every time he was on screen and even remembered some of his lines to recite to friends:
Winston to his fellow cop on the phone:
“Turn down the fuckin’ Sepultura man and listen to me!”
Winston to the lunkhead water treatment supervisor:
“You’ll be a hero man and get some hero pussy! The Sashimi! That’s the non-stinky pussy!”
Blood spurting out of man’s tracheotomy hole was also a pretty badass scene. Can’t say I’ve seen that before!
Cabin Fever 2 is a far cry from the great film the first one is. Rumor has it that the film was shopped around by the studio and Eli Roth and Adam Green were both passed on as Director’s of this sequel while it sat on the shelf rotting for 2 years. It’s a testament to poor decision making by Hollywood bigwigs that know nothing about the genre and what it’s fans want. One could only imagine what this film would have been instead, in more competent hands. Check it out for a few quick laughs, but don’t expect it to be anywhere near as good as the original.
